Blog » 2017 » November

There was a debate in the House of Lords about inter-generational fairness on 26th October. This link takes you to my contribution. I concentrated on working-class older people, why they feel misunderstood and are being criticised unfairly.

The following day, during the debate on Lord (Chris) Holmes’ Private Members’ bill to ban unpaid work experience (beyond 4 weeks), I spoke about the way too many of our young people are being exploited when trying to find paid work and why I supported his bill. I also made the point that younger people feel misunderstood by the generation just ahead of them, whose experiences were different to their own. This is my speech.

The last thing we should do is pitch older and younger people against each other. In fact, I think there is quite a lot which unites these two demographics.

Part of what needs to change if we are to respond properly to the social divides in our society is the way we do politics. This piece by me for Unherd focuses on the Parliamentary process. It was published on 11th October 2017.